Wednesday, 20 May 2015

Starting point of this year’s conference will be the question of how to reimagine and define the role of citizenship education in increasingly divided and polarized societies. Fundamentalist religious, ethnic and cultural perceptions of ‘Them’ and ‘Us` play an ever more important role in the ongoing crises and upheavals in today’s world. Increasingly rigid notions of belonging and identity are affecting the ability and the readiness for democratically solving conflicts on the international, European and national levels. NECE 2015 will look into the cause and the implications of this phenomenon in three areas of special relevance for citizenship educators:

• The impact of Europe’s economic and political division, which has triggered discourses fuelled by fears and dissociation in the core countries of the EU and populist movements in core countries as well as in the southern periphery of the EU.
• The perception of a civilizational conflict between the ‘West’ and the ‘Islamic World’ which is leading to dangerous developments on both sides of the Mediterranean.
• The repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the challenges for civil society in Eastern Europe and Russia to cope with situations of war and ideological regression and hatred within their societies.

Your participation in debating these complex issues is needed and most welcome. Numerous workshops and panel sessions will offer an opportunity to actively participate. A call for projects and papers to be presented in a project market and in workshops will be launched within the next weeks.
Keynoters such as renowned writer and essayist Pankaj Mishra and prize winning Israeli author Lizzie Doron have confirmed their participation.

NECE 2015 is organized by the Federal Agency of Civic Education, the Austrian Ministry for Education and Women für Bildung and Pro Demos – House of democracy and the rule of law in cooperation in cooperation with the CEO – Center for Civic Education in Warsaw, the Centrum Občanského Vzdělávání – Civic Education Centre and the University of Ljubljana – Faculty of Social Sciences. The NECE conference is supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung. Partner of the NECE conference 2015 is the Goethe Institut Thessaloniki.

We would be pleased to welcome you in Thessaloniki. You may find the draft programme, organisational advice and a list of hotel recommendations at www.nece.eu.
Please be informed that we cannot cover your travel and accommodation.

For pre-registration, please use: nece-greece2015@lab-concepts.de
An online registration with the option to select the workshops you would like to attend will be opened by mid June.

DARE, Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe, is a Europe-wide network that aims to promote education for democratic citizenship and human rights. The network currently consists of 38 member organisations from 24 countries in Europe.